A Reason To Live
by Laureen Lycan
Summary: After the final battle, Hermione finds the love of her life in the arms of another man. Her heart breaken, friends dead, and school demolished, she questions the point of living. Pg-13 for Mild Slash.


A Reason to Live  
  
A/N: Some mild slash here. An idea that I had been wondering at for a while.  
  
Setting: The Golden Gryffindor's seventh year at Hogwart's just after the Final Battle.  
  
  
  
It was over.  
  
Hermione looked up at the mocking blue sky laughing down at the frightening bodies of all her friends.  
  
She looked around slowly. There was Harry, getting up from the ground, his scar covered with dried blood. Ron was next to him. He wasn't moving, but she could just hear his raspy breathing.  
  
Her gaze shifted downwards.  
  
There was Ginny, dead at her feet. The girl had shown her true, darker colors in the end, and disarmed, it had been a hand-to-hand combat.  
  
She wiped away a streak of blood, leaving another in its place.  
  
With pain, she sniffed and extended her wand hand, muttering a summoning charm she had learned from some book in the library. "The library" she thought. She glanced back at the school. Demolished. The final battle had taken its place at the school. She feared it wouldn't be the same for a long, long, time.  
  
She felt wood against the palm of her hand and she closed her fingers around it.  
  
She felt numb, deadened. She slowly began walking, stumbling over the dead bodies of her friends. She tripped once, and fell on her face. She lay there a moment, covered in the blood of some Death Eater she recognized as one that Sirius had been dueling.  
  
Sirius.  
  
She slowly sat up and looked around.  
  
She saw Ron, being helped up by Harry. Both looked at each other, then their eyes drifted somewhere behind Hermione. It took her a moment to realize they were both staring at Ginny's body in disbelief.  
  
She looked behind them, there, she found Fang, mourning the loss of his master's death.  
  
Hagrid had died a hero's death, taking most of the blast that was directed at Ron, leaving him only a small percentage to deal with.  
  
She looked past them to just underneath the Whomping Willow. There was Professor Dumbledor, dying in the arms of her Head of House. She had always wondered if there was perhaps something more than respect for the Headmaster in her professor's eyes.  
  
She supposed she should go over there.she supposed she should show some pain. But she couldn't, and she felt selfish, oh so selfish, while her friends lay dead or injured, and dying all around her. She didn't care. She couldn't. Because just next to them was something that had made her heart shatter.  
  
There, she found one of the people she had been searching for.  
  
Sirius.  
  
And Him.  
  
She stood up dumbly, watching Remus wrap Sirius in a warm embrace that she knew held something deeper than friendship.  
  
She felt blood oozing down her palms from nail marks she wasn't aware of.  
  
She involuntarily took several steps toward them, the grass, or what was left of it, slippery from the slick layer of blood on it.  
  
She saw the couple disentangle themselves, stare each other in the eyes. She saw the look in His eyes. The eyes of her beloved. Staring into the eyes of his best friend.  
  
She slipped on the grass and fell once again. Yet she still stared, unaware of the tears that cleansed the blood streaks of her face.  
  
She knew this was wrong. Knew she should look away from the two, but she couldn't tear her tearing eyes away from the site of Sirius and Remus burying themselves in the other's arms.  
  
A sob erupted from her throat and she fell to the grass, pounding her fist on the ground.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"What was the point?" she wondered, as her fists began bruising.  
  
"What was the point of surviving? Of living? Only to come to this?"  
  
She positioned her hands underneath her in an effort to push herself up.  
  
The site of Remus cradling his companion made her fall once again.  
  
She left herself on the ground, defeated. Her beloved belonged to someone else.  
  
She shut her eyes tightly.  
  
She had known. Oh, my, yes, she had always known, deep down inside, that he was gay. Known but could never let the full realization sink in that the man she loved would never, **could** ever be attracted to her. Not even in the slightest, shallowest physical ways possible.  
  
She lay down and shut her eyes among the mass of dead bodies, willing herself to die.  
  
Albus had had Minerva. Harry had Ron, Ron had Harry. Hell, even Ginny had people to mourn her death. Hagrid had Fang; and Sirius and Remus? They had each other to be content with.  
  
The love of her life was gay and in love with Sirius Black, and he with him.  
  
"He'll be happy, at least," she told herself.  
  
Slowly, slowly, she willed her heartbeat to slow, and lay there, praying for darkness to overtake her.  
  
She dreamt.  
  
She dreamt that there was a wave of blackness hovering over her, ready to crash down and take her. How she longed for that wave, that blackness. She reached out for it, reaching, almost, yet quite not there. The wave came crashing down; it's tendrils reaching out hungrily to devour her, yet at the very last moment. Someone pulled her out.  
  
She awoke with a start.  
  
She was in some sort of makeshift bed. Looking around, she realized she was in a part of the Forbidden Forest that had remained untouched by the Battle.  
  
Blinking, she realized that Harry and Ron were sitting next to her, both with tears in their eyes as they clutched the dirty sheets of the bed.  
  
She tried to sit up, but was overcome with a wave of dizziness, so she allowed herself to fall back down upon the pillows.  
  
Her best friends looked at each other, then back at her. She noticed Harry was crying.  
  
"We thought you were dead," Ron whispered hoarsely.  
  
"W-we were going to.to." but Harry couldn't finish and he turned and walked off.  
  
"If it hadn't been for Snape, we would have cremated you along with the others," Ron whispered. "He just.wouldn't accept that you were dead like the others. Persisted, fought all of us.even Harry and I." Disgust and pain dominated in his voice, and he, like Harry, left.  
  
But she wasn't alone.  
  
There, watching her intently, was Severus sitting quietly in a chair not two yards away from her.  
  
Briefly, she wondered why she hadn't noticed him.  
  
He stood up, his jet-black eyes looking down at her, his face impassive.  
  
She marveled at his ability to seem overpowering and intimidating even in his current limping, tortured state. None of the Death Eater's had been kind to him.  
  
She sat up slowly, and this time, she didn't fall back down.  
  
"Ms. Granger," he murmured, as formal as ever. "I trust you will not be wishing to leave us again any time soon?"  
  
She blinked, detecting a small quiver of - worry? Concern? Something more? In his voice?  
  
She didn't respond and he seemed to understand. She merely held his gaze.  
  
In one graceful movement she would have felt impossible for anyone else in his current state, he knelt down to her level and to her astonishment, he held out one of his long, thin, and pale artistic hands and gently brushed her cheek in a rare display of affection that left her (for once) speechless with utter and complete shock. "Don't you dare do that to me-to us," he corrected himself quickly, "again," he whispered fiercely.  
  
She stared at this man in disbelief and, as a reassurance, she told herself, merely covered his hand with hers.  
  
She looked over his shoulder and, with a stab to her heart, she saw Sirius and Remus lost in a world of their own. She swallowed, and looked back to the still and nervous-looking man kneeling in front of her and suddenly, she felt she had a reason to live. She reached out a hand and with some hesitation, allowed it to brush his cheek.  
  
She had, and would always, no matter what, have a reason to live. 


End file.
